Blizzard: DRM is a Losing Battle

[Guest]

Steam has been fantastic for me, and the existence of Steam has resulted in many purchases which otherwise I would never have made.

 

[adipose]

[citation][nom]culgor[/nom]"DRM is a losing battle" says the company that isn't providing LAN support to their upcoming game.[/citation]

They didn't say they supported piracy. They said DRM is bad. And not making pirated copies more valuable is not DRM. On the other hand, the did remove a feature that some legitimate users will miss, but that's pretty different from DRM.

 

[kelemvor4]

Sounds good to me. The game will be pirated any way you go. Why waste time pissing off legit customers?

I do wish they'd get on with selling the game, though! Just like fermi before I was able to buy the 480, I'm sick of hearing about it!

 

[bobusboy]

we had a lan party at my school once and to install Star Craft 1 on buddies laptop, i litteraly smashed my hands on the keyboard for the serial number/cd key. First try failed, Second try worked perfectly.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]mattclary[/nom]TFTFY. Phone home = DRM. Give me a simple disk check, or you can keep your freaking game.[/citation]
Actually, you broke it 😛 In case you weren't aware, Blizzard already follows the "Steam model" of DRM for their games, via battle.net. The main difference is there is no specific "battle.net" client; instead, you use the battle.net website to access your games, and download a client that will download the game. Now, since StarCraft II will require a BNet account to access it period, you could say that it technically "phones home" every time you start the application - but by that standard so does Steam. Much like Steam though, once you've logged in for the first time and set up the client on that PC, you can play offline just fine.

For the person who wants to play Starcraft w/o the CD, you already can - go to battle.net, create an account (like a Steam account), and add the game to your account (you just need your CD key). After the game's added, you can download and install the game as much as you want, and you don't require the CD to run the game.

 

[MadAdmiral]

I'm glad to see some game companies actually understand the consumer. I also don't think Blizzard has much to worry about, as they've always created their own way to punish priates by taking away functionality. Instead of trying to prevent piracy by frustrating the legit owners, more companies need to follow Blizzard/Steam by finding ways to deter only the culprits.

 

[Trueno07]

[citation][nom]IncinX[/nom]I would not consider Steam intrusive but it does have DRM. In fact, I like how Steam lets me install on any system so I can lose the discs and it's all good. I would go even further to say that Steam with it's DRM is better than buying a game on CD without DRM!While I concede that no form of DRM is unstoppable. There should be some level of protection preventing everyone from stealing it willy nilly. People work hard to create good games and unfortunately even the good games will be pirated and played over and over without being paid for. Not everyone believes in paying for things that are worth it.[/citation]

Exactly my view on the situation, Thank you.

 

[ipp]

There is a reason I pre-order every blizzard game. They make good stuff and the online experience is GREAT.

 

[Strider-Hiryu_79]

[citation][nom]Hilarion[/nom]Battle.net is a losing proposition. I don't want to be bothered while I'm playing my game and I'd rather do that locally than over the web.I'm also not a fan of Steam.[/citation]

Sounds like you have one of those blazing fast state of the art 56k baud modems. The future is now.

 

[_renegade_]

Okay let me see if i got this right...
People complain so much about that Starcraft II wont have lan, and therefor u cant sit together to play and yell at echother..

hmm so let me see you invite 7 friends home to you, and conect all to the internet and play over Battle net.... ye i can see the big problem there it simply cant be done, no way you can play next to frinds now that lan is gone.. we still live en the stoneage with no internet.

 

[Vestin]

[citation][nom]regulas[/nom]Really, then why don't you release a freaking patch so I can play Starcraft 1 without the damn CD.[/citation]
You mean - patch 1.15.2 😉 ? I think they released it QUITE a while ago...
Just log into Battle.net to download the latest patch and then:
"Windows Users:
- Make sure you have "Hide extensions for known types" unchecked. To do this please use the following steps:
- Click Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Windows Explorer
- Click on Tools -> Folder options (Windows Vista users may have to press the Alt key to see the tools option at the top of the window)
- Click on the View Tab In the list, look for the "Hide extensions for known file types" option, and make sure that it is unchecked.
- Click OK to save the changes.
- Now you will need to copy some files from the Game CDs

- If you own only StarCraft, copy "INSTALL.EXE" from the StarCraft CD to your StarCraft folder and rename it to "StarCraft.mpq".

- If you own StarCraft: Brood War, copy "INSTALL.EXE" from the StarCraft: Brood War CD to your StarCraft folder and rename it to "BroodWar.mpq". If you wish to play the StarCraft original missions then please copy and rename the install file from the original StarCraft CD as well, as listed directly above.

Mac users:
- If you own only StarCraft, copy "StarCraft Archive" from the StarCraft CD to your StarCraft/StarCraft Files/ folder.
- If you own StarCraft: Brood War, copy "Brood War Archive" from the StarCraft: Brood War CD to your StarCraft/StarCraft Files/ folder. If you wish to play the StarCraft original missions then please copy the Starcraft Archive file from the original StarCraft CD as well, as listed directly above."

Or you can do it even easier - simply go to your battle.net account, enter your Starcraft CD-key and download the installer.

 

[tossy]

Regulas - "Really, then why don't you release a freaking patch so I can play Starcraft 1 without the damn CD."

Funny you say this, as Blizzard did this many years ago, actually.

 

[CoryInJapan]

Aaaahhhhhhhmmeeennn.

that is all.

 

[mwoller]

[citation][nom]regulas[/nom]Really, then why don't you release a freaking patch so I can play Starcraft 1 without the damn CD.[/citation]

Register the CD Key on Battle.net and you can download a version that is digital, and does not require a CD. Blizzard does this will all it's games, and has done so for... over a year?

Idiot.

 

[Guest]

I just want LAN, I was so looking forward to getting together with a few friends and having a good nights SC2ing but it looks like that's dead. We used to take our laptops away and play SC1 in the middle of nowhere but that's dead in the new one. I hope blizz knows that there are old customers that may not buy SC2 just because there is no LAN.

 

[klavis]

I say screw steam, use impulse, they actually don't have any DRM. You buy the game, use their program to download and install. From that point on you can just start the game, no need to have the client on, truly, a no DRM system, amazing isn't it?

 

[klavis]

[citation][nom]_renegade_[/nom]Okay let me see if i got this right...People complain so much about that Starcraft II wont have lan, and therefor u cant sit together to play and yell at echother.. hmm so let me see you invite 7 friends home to you, and conect all to the internet and play over Battle net.... ye i can see the big problem there it simply cant be done, no way you can play next to frinds now that lan is gone.. we still live en the stoneage with no internet.[/citation]

You actually think that seven people connected through one internet connection to play a game on a remote server will run just the same as if you were using a closed system?

 

[Luker3]

@fatarsemonkey - you belong to a very small demographic, not one they are going to sacrifice other parts of the experience they are making to support.

BTW, you can still LAN up with people. You just need the internet to log in. Your private game will be plenty fast with all of you hooked into the same network.

The only thing I can figure is if the games are being host on remote server by Blizzard. Even then SC2 only uses about 5-8Kb/s on average, and even your economy speed internet package should be able to handle that with 7 of your closest friends connected.

 

[coldmast]

[citation][nom]duckmanx88[/nom]don't get upset when you buy a 360 game and can't play it on a ps3 do you?[/citation]
you do when your "insert hardware here" dies and you have to get a new one.

 

[ElysianMerc]

I think that star dock has the best policy. No DRM. If you don't have a CD Key you can't get updates.

 

[_renegade_]

[citation][nom]klavis[/nom]You actually think that seven people connected through one internet connection to play a game on a remote server will run just the same as if you were using a closed system?[/citation]


well i dont know about you but i have a 20/4 mbit connection and as far as i know that should be way more than enugh for 8 people to play online i even think we could be 20-30 for that matter.

so ye i think 7 people + me could play and for the battel net it self well so far in the past i havent had any problems with connection to battel net what so ever, i think its safe to say it can easy be done

But i saw one that said, that they took a trip out to a deserted place, and that might be a problem i can see that since you might not have internet all the way out there

 

[MxM]

I do not know why people like STEAM so much, Stardock and/or Impulse is MUCH better distribution system. You see, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RUN IMPULSE TO PLAY THE GAME, but you MUST run the STEAM. And I had several cases when I could not play games with STEAM because STEAM wanted to update itself, but my internet connection was down. So, I could not even switch it into offline mode, because the update was required to be finished for that! UGH!

 

[Tmanishere]

I do not know why people like STEAM so much, Stardock and/or Impulse is MUCH better distribution system. You see, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RUN IMPULSE TO PLAY THE GAME, but you MUST run the STEAM. And I had several cases when I could not play games with STEAM because STEAM wanted to update itself, but my internet connection was down. So, I could not even switch it into offline mode, because the update was required to be finished for that! UGH!

You hit the nail on the head! I was having the exact problem on Steam since my stupid ISP (Charter) is giving me slow/unstable connection speed. Don't even bring up "oh but you got the offline mode..." argument because it is pretty damn useless in this case.

 

[klavis]

[citation][nom]_renegade_[/nom]well i dont know about you but i have a 20/4 mbit connection and as far as i know that should be way more than enugh for 8 people to play online i even think we could be 20-30 for that matter.so ye i think 7 people + me could play and for the battel net it self well so far in the past i havent had any problems with connection to battel net what so ever, i think its safe to say it can easy be done But i saw one that said, that they took a trip out to a deserted place, and that might be a problem i can see that since you might not have internet all the way out there[/citation]

With a good connection ya, you probably could, but I don't see why they should be making you. Also, for example that desert comment, made me think about all the people who don't have a good connection. For example, people who don't live in a decent sized city or out in the country could be forced to use satellite for internet. The latency alone could cause problems and there are a lot of people without good internet. It seems fairly obvious Blizzard is not adding LAN support as a control measure, which I don't approve of. It will effect sales, maybe not enough for them to give a shit, but they could be making that much more money if they added what has been a basic feature of this type of game for well over a decade.

 

[s4fun]

Is battle.net still going to have a fit with having multiple clients behind a NAT firewall? Blizzard should just dump b.net and go with Steam in that case.